Internet bombarded with spectators' footage of racer running over other driver.

Police are crowdsourcing an investigation to determine whether criminal charges should be brought in connection with a deadly sprint car race on Saturday—and are urging spectators to turn over any still or video footage that might help with the probe.

Spectator videos of the deadly crash Saturday at the Canandaigua Motorsports Park in Canandaigua, New York, already have gone viral, with millions of viewers watching the incident on YouTube. Famed NASCAR driver Tony Stewart was competing in the non-NASCAR event when he collided with Kevin Ward Jr.'s car and knocked him out of the race. Ward exited his vehicle and walked down the dirt track, apparently angry at Stewart and gesturing at him. When Stewart's car came around after another lap, it struck Ward, who later died.

"We're trying to collect the facts so we can definitively identify the cause of the crash," Ontario County Sheriff Philip Povero told a news conference late Sunday. "The world is watching. We're working on it diligently."

One of the last high-profile, crowdsourced investigations was the Boston Marathon bombings, in which footage from both onlookers and surveillance cameras helped the authorities piece together the 2013 incident.

David Kravets
The senior editor for Ars Technica. Founder of TYDN fake news site. Technologist. Political scientist. Humorist. Dad of two boys. Been doing journalism for so long I remember manual typewriters with real paper. Emaildavid.kravets@arstechnica.com//Twitter@dmkravets